Jan. 15 (UPI) — Prosecutors charged 20 men in an alleged point-shaving scheme that impacted more than 29 college basketball games, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday.
Tulane, Buffalo, DePaul, New Orleans and Eastern Michigan were among 17 schools named in the 70-page indictment from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. More than 39 college basketball players from those teams were allegedly involved, with many playing in 2023-24, 2024-25 or this season.
More than a dozen of the defendants played during the 2023-24 and/or 2024-25 college basketball seasons.
The defendants include Marves Fairley and Shane Hennen, who were among six charged by federal prosecutors in New York for running the sports gambling scheme in the NBA that also involved Terry Rozier.
Dyquavion Short and Cedquavious Hunter and Short, who are also named, were sanctioned in November by the NCAA for in-game manipulation for sports betting purposes while playing for New Orleans.
The other defendants are: Jalen Smith, Roderick Winkler, Alberto Laureano, Arnaldo Arnold, Simeon Cottle, Kevin Cross, Bradley Ezewiro, Shawn Fulcher, Carlos Hart, Markeese Hastings, Oumar Koureissi, Da’Sean Nelson, Camian Snell, Airion Simmons and Jalen Terry.
They are charged with bribery in sporting contests, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and aiding and abetting.
In their indictment, prosecutors allege that the defendants conducted a bribery scheme with Chinese Basketball Association and NCAA men’s basketball games through point shaving to help ensure their team failed to cover the spread in certain games while using various sports books to arrange large wagers to be placed on those games.
The indictment states that Fairley and Hennen recruited Blakeny, a player for the CBA’s Jiangsu Dragons, offering to pay him in exchange for underperforming in and influencing the outcome of CBA games. They said Blakeny — who also played for LSU and in the NBA — agreed to participate and recruited teammates to join the scheme.
The indictment adds that Smith, Fairley, Hennen, Winkler, Laureano and Blakeney agreed to recruit NCAA players who would accept bribes in exchange for influencing the outcome of basketball games. They recruited players to help ensure the teams they bet on failed to cover the spread for the first half or entire game.
Smith, Fairley, Winkler, Laureano and Blakeney later communicated with NCAA basketball players and offered bribe payments ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 per game to participate in the scheme.
Abilene Christian, Alabama State, Coppin State, Fordham, Kennesaw State, La Salle, Nicholls State, North Carolina A&T, Northwestern State, Robert Morris, Saint Louis and Southern Miss also were named in the indictment.
“The NCAA runs one of the largest integrity monitoring programs in the world and has implored states to eliminate prop bets because of the integrity risks those bets pose,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement. “The association also has no commercial partnership with any betting company of any kind.
“Protecting competition integrity is of the utmost importance for the NCAA. We are thankful for law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports.
“The pattern of college basketball game integrity conduct revealed by law enforcement today is not entirely new information to the NCAA. Through helpful collaboration and with industry regulators, we have finished or have open investigations into almost all of the teams in today’s indictment.”
Baker said the NCAA opened sports betting integrity investigations into about 40 student-athletes from 20 schools over the last year and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement. Through the NCAA probes, some of which are ongoing, 11 student-athletes from seven schools were found to be on their own performances, shared information with bettors and/or engaged in game manipulation. He said they were permanently stripped of NCAA eligibility.
Another 13 student-athletes from eight schools did not cooperate with the investigation by providing false or misleading information, failing to provide documentation or refusing interviews, Baker said.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.